The Barker Street Regulars

found a packet of tissues, and handed me one. I blew my nose.
    “I’ve upset you,” she said. “There’s no need, really. Until six months ago, I felt the same way. Since then, I have had the great comfort of communicating with Simon and knowing for certain that his abiding presence is more than a lonely woman’s foolish hope.”
    I cleared my throat. “I need to sign out and get my raincoat. It was very nice to meet—”
    “Oh, I’ll come with you.” As I returned my little volunteer’s badge to its place on a bulletin board in the office, signed out, and retrieved my raincoat, Ceci went on and on. Simon spoke to her, she informed me. It was a great comfort, she said again, to receive messages from Simon. I couldn’t help wondering, of course, whether Ceci also communicated with her late husband, Ellis. If not, didn’t the man’s spirit sense her preferential treatment of the dog? Weren’t his feelings hurt? But I lacked the courage to ask.
    On the way out, we passed through the lobby, and I managed to shake Ceci for a couple of minutes so that Rowdy and I could say goodbye to the people gathered there, but she waited and trailed me through the doors to the parking lot. Ceci kept assuring me that what the unenlightened mistook for death was, in fact, a state of trance. Meanwhile, Rowdy devoted himself to what I assume is the exclusively earthly activity of making repeated passes at a shrub near my car and finally drenching it. The male dog’s question about eternity: Is there pee after death? I did not ask Ceci whether she’d interrogated Simon on the subject. Simon, she said, told her that he was happy running and playing. Was that what Vinnie told me?
    “My, uh, beliefs stop a little short of yours,” I confessed.
    “But there’s no need!” Ceci cried.
    “There seems to be for me.”
    “You do sense her presence?”
    “Yes.”
    “Are you able to speak with her?”
    I seldom discussed the subject. I especially avoided it when my friend and second-floor tenant, Rita, was around. Rita is a clinical psychologist. She already thinks that everyone is insane and doesn’t need any supporting evidence from me. “Well, I, uh, I say things to her,” I stammered. Vinnie was a golden retriever. She was my great obedience dog. She had a temperament from the heaven to which she has returned. Goldens are eager to please, but they aren’t necessarily brilliant. Vinnie was. She was quick, insightful, observant, and intuitive. Nonetheless, when she was here with me, our verbal exchanges were a trifle one-sided, and the balance hadn’t shifted since her demise.
    Ceci shook her head sadly. “They have so much to share with us!”
    “Vinnie gave me everything,” I said in her defense.
    “You’d give anything, wouldn’t you,” said Ceci, “to see her again.”
    With no hesitation, I said, “Yes. Anything.”
    “With the help of the gifted, our loved ones approach closer all the time.” With a knowing nod, she extracted an ivory business card from her purse and pressed it on me. Then she made her way to a beige Mercedes.
    I looked at the card, IRENE WHEELER, it read, ANIMAL COMMUNICATOR. The address was in Cambridge.
    “I’ll be damned,” I said to Rowdy. “Irene Wheeler.”
    The animal psychic? The quack consulted by Gloria and Scott? Irene Wheeler.
    I am an animal communicator. Ask Rowdy. Ask Kimi. For that matter, ask Vinnie. If you love your dog, you are an animal communicator. Steve Delaney is an animal communicator. For instance, he’d communicated Gigi’s need to be spayed. But Irene Wheeler, Animal Communicator? No, no, no. Irene Wheeler, Charlatan.
     

Chapter Five
     
    F IVE DAYS LATER, EARLY on Friday morning, I was tempted to call the Gateway to offer some trumped-up excuse to postpone our visit. I’d slept restlessly and awakened with a sense of obligations unfulfilled. Besides having to earn a living, I had to keep a dentist appointment in Newton, and I had to groom both dogs for a show the next day. I always shampoo and blow dry them before a show to make their coats really stand off their bodies, the way the standard says. The standard also says that malamutes are to be evaluated principally on the basis of their original function as sledge dogs. Whenever I get the dogs ready for a show, I feel sorry for the generations of Arctic dwellers who relied on these dogs to act as canine moving vans. What those people must have gone through to make sure the dogs would pull! I